On
The 25th A Sudden Change Took Place, And We Found Ourselves In A Small,
Open Thicket With A Coarse
Undergrowth of grass, and scattered about were
a few boulders of decomposed granite and occasional low outcrops of rock.
Several
Old native camps put us on the alert, and presently we found a
well - a shallow hole, 7 feet deep, and 2 feet 6 inches in diameter,
entirely surrounded by high spinifex. Why there should ever be water
there, or how the blacks got to know of it, was a problem we could only
guess at. Everything looked so dry and parched that we were in no way
surprised at finding the well waterless. Prempeh had been very unwell
lately, refusing to take what little feed there was to be got. A dose of
sulphur and butter was administered, poured warm down his throat by me as
Breaden held open his month, grasped firmly by either lip. I believe
sulphur is an excellent thing for camels, and used often to treat them
to the mixture, some - Satan, for example - being very partial to it. The
position of this well I found to be lat. 25 degrees 15 minutes, long.
124 degrees 48 minutes; from the edge of the mulga, one hundred yards or
so to the North of it, a range of rough looking hills is visible. This I
named the Browne Range, after my old friends at Bayley's Reward, and the
two conspicuous points I christened Mount Gordon, after Mr. Gordon Lyon,
and Mount Everard, after Mr. Everard Browne, respectively.
Mount Gordon is flat-topped; and Mount Everard a double hill, a peak
rising from a flat top, bears 82 degrees from the well. This range stood
out boldly from the open country and promised well for hilly country
ahead. Nor were we disappointed, for after two hours' travel we sighted
an imposing-looking range, and altered our course to the highest point, a
queer dome-shaped peak, which we called Charlie's Knob, since he had
first seen the hills. On nearer approach the hills lost much of their
grandeur. By camping-time we were close to their foot amongst rocky
rises, very rough to the feet of our animals. They were rewarded for
their discomforts by a small patch of herbage which they quickly
demolished. That night we heard the dismal howling of two dingoes, who
might either be giving expression to their satisfaction at finding water
or to their disappointment at not having done so. Three miles more of
rugged ground the next morning brought us to Charlie's Knob, and beyond
it the range, which on close examination was not imposing, being a series
of detached sandstone hills, their summits flat and slightly sloping to
the South, capped with a hard reddish-brown rock (baked shale). On the
cap, loose fragments of shale and thick scrub; forming its sides sheer
cliffs, at most fifteen feet high, perforated by holes and caves, above
rough, stony banks. The whole covered with tufts of spinifex, barren,
wretched, and uninviting.
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